Family travel ideas and inspiration... We've been around the world and back, and still counting the miles. Join in for tips and tricks to make your next family adventure a learning success for TEENS, TWEENS and PARENTS, too.

Friday, September 28, 2012

The birth of a series of e-Books

Any one who has delved into the new world of publishing will probably tell you the writing was the easy part.

After completing the story (writing and editing, over and over), there is still the task of format. How should this story be made available to its audience? There is more to books, than books.

"Mom! There's a Lion in the Toilet" is a global story, and it has, by its very nature, an international audience. How can we best get that story to Peru, Greece, Sweden, Bali, Australia and New Zealand? Well, we could print it in Canada, and then ship it there. That is pretty expensive (but still do-able). We could contact in international print-on-demand company, and have the book printed in its destination, and we are looking into that. And we could make it instantly available as an e-book, which is a growing, economical (and environmentally friendly) phenom.

Did you know that more people will read a book in e-format than in paperback this year? Wow.

So, that learning curve got steeper, and the formatting got more complicated. Thank goodness I am related to a great computer-guy... when the "simple" directions made my eyes cross, I can "phone a friend."

We decided that it was best to bite off the e-book market in small chunks rather than all at once. We wrapped up each continent of our trip into a novella, and created an e-book series of six. Each novella is about 80 pages long, and features all the stories that occurred in one part of the world - easier to "Tag" as a non-fiction travel destination, and easier to market for the same reason. Once all six novellas are completed, we will "bundle them" together as the whole e-book, "Mom! There's a Lion in the Toilet" which will be available in print form.

We published the series first on www.Smashwords.com, which distributes to Apple, Barnes & Noble, Nook and other smaller market e-readers. To access Amazon, we had to publish directly with Kindle Direct Publishing (Thanks to Rob, my PC buddy, I bow to your expertise!) And once we managed to have one "clean" e-book up and running, we can continue with the next in the series. Sorry, eager readers, for the slight delay, but I promise my progress is steady, if slow.

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Print and ecopy now available!

Website: 6andersons1world.com
Twitter: @6anderson1world
eBook Mom! There's a Lion in the Toilet! is Available at Amazon, iBookstore, Kobo, and in print at independent bookstores and select Chapters locations in the Edmonton area.